10 minute read
Organic Sea Harvest
A sense of place
Alex MacInnes believes the link between farming and the community is hugely important
BY ROBERT OUTRAM
Scotland’s fi rst salmon farming start-up for some 30 years is set to see its fi rst harvest this month. Organic Sea Harvest (OSH) operates two sites on Skye, Invertote and Culnacnoc; it is not only Scotland’s fi rst independent salmon farmer in decades but also the country’s only farmer completely dedicated to only producing cer� fi ed organic salmon in this sector.
The route to the fi rst harvest has not been easy, however, as Alex MacInnes, a director and one of the farming partners, explains. MacInnes, who is also part of the team heading up the farming opera� ons at the company, says: “Our fi sh have performed well… it wasn’t an easy start for them. We had a lot of challenges – the perfect storm between regula� on, and Covid-19 – and we’ve done that at the Invertote site without some of the infrastructure [that we had planned] because Covid delayed everything.
“We didn’t have a feed barge, for example. But we have some very experienced and capable staff who were working without feed barges in their early careers and they are very knowledgeable about manually hand feeding the stock. There always has to be a plan B which for us in this case worked well and now everybody’s looking forward to harves� ng.”
OSH has also run into planning permission setbacks over its next two proposed sites, which has been disappoin� ng for a business that has always set out, not only to produce fi sh with the highest standards of welfare and sustainability, but also to be an integral part of its local community.
OSH was started as a business in 2016 but, MacInnes explains, the idea goes back at least 10 years.
Above: Birds eye view of invertote Left: Alex MacInnes Top right: Ove Thu Right: Organic Smolt
He says: “My colleagues and I all had the same ambition. We all believed that there was a lack of organic product out there globally, and there was certainly room for another player.”
As well as Alex MacInnes, the directors in the management team are Robert Gray, who heads harvesting and processing, and Ove Thu, who is responsible for sales and marketing and is also CEO of Villa UK, which is a founding partner of OSH. Villa UK is itself a joint venture between Norway’s Villa Seafood Group, Visscher Seafood (based in the Netherlands) and the principals of Canadian firm Dom International.
Skye was selected after a study to determine the best location for an organic site. OSH’s farms are located in deep, high-energy waters, and as MacInnes explains: “That has benefits. You can see that in our fish, they’re very lean – they don’t carry a lot of fat. They have a lot of muscle because they are always swimming, because of the continuous tidal conditions.”
He adds: “We have excellent water quality at those sites and we have excellent, healthy fish.”
The open waters off north east Skye have good dissolved oxygen levels, good salinity and stable temperatures, and the tides help to disseminate fish faeces, which mean the nutrients in them can be spread in a way that benefits the marine ecosystem. The company also operates a lower stocking density to conform with organic standards compared to most farms, with 10kg per cubic metre, adding up to a ratio of 0.1%-1% fish to water in the pens.
OSH has been certified by the Soil Association, the UK’s leading body for organic credentials. This restricts the treatments and chemicals that are permitted for regular use although there are exceptions for special circumstances. OSH are also working towards other International organic standards and continue to work closely with the Soil Association on this.
As MacInnes puts it: “Fish welfare will always come first. The stock must always be looked after, so you cannot allow them to suffer. In the event that we were to find ourselves in that situation we would take the best advice with the Soil Association and our veterinary partners.”
So far, OSH has been successful in using fresh water treatments, primarily as a preventive against gill disease, an innovative wash and soft brush mechanical system and cleaner fish as lice control, using farmed lumpfish and locally caught ballan wrasse. OSH are also about to introduce their first farmed ballan wrasse working in partnership with Otter Ferry Seafish which is another very exciting development for the business
Soil Association certification also affects the feed OSH is allowed to use. The company has been working closely with its sole feed supplier, EWOS, which is part of the Cargill group. EWOS’s “Harmony” feed meets the Soil Association’s organic criteria and, MacInnes says: “It’s a diet that’s well proven and one that we see delivering well for us now that we have our stock in the sea.”
MacInnes adds: “EWOS have an excellent understanding of the organic market, they have excellent people who are supportive, technically and professionally. We have regular meetings with them, we are assessing key performance indicators with them regularly and that’s hugely beneficial to us as a business.”
Working in partnership with local suppliers is part of the OSH philosophy. Construction of the two sites, for example, was undertaken by Gael Force. This required careful preparation to cope with the demands of the farms’ location in the open seas off Skye.
MacInnes explains: “You can’t just put your normal sea loch accredited equipment into high energy sites. Equipment for these sites is more robust, and larger. We had to be sure that the equipment on the farms could survive the environment we were going to be operating in, so we spent a lot of time assessing that, and speaking to a number of suppliers.
“We built up a rela� onship with Gael Force – they successfully bid for the work – and the equipment has stood the test of � me in the 12 months that it has been in place.”
Partnership has also been the theme for OSH’s rela� onship with Landcatch, which supplies smolts for OSH from its hatchery at Gairloch. MacInnes says: “The hatchery is being converted as we speak to meet the Soil Associa� on standards and it will be fully dedicated to Organic Sea Harvest. That’s a big commitment on Landcatch’s part and on our part. We have massive respect for each other.”
MacInnes grew up on North Uist in the Western Isles and worked in the family business, which included one of the fi rst co� age industry type fi sh farms in Scotland. Now two of his sons are working with OSH, one full-� me and one part-� me. He believes strongly in the connec� on between businesses and the local community. One of the factors behind the choice of Staffi n – in the north east of Skye – was the support from the local, close-knit community.
He says: “We had a really good get-together and we met members of the community trust and the council. It was a kind of “lightbulb moment”. Staffi n is a community that is, economically, on the edge, but it’s got great strength in its culture and a strong sense of community values.
“The school roll was falling as it does in many fragile communi� es, as people move away. People within the trust wanted to hold on to their community, their culture and their Gaelic language.” For myself and for all my colleagues in the business this element of the journey is incredibly important in that we have to retain these strong and important values that we have been brought up with to respect at all � mes.
For OSH: “We employ 12 direct staff at the moment, and all of them are local. Some have children as well. We feel well established in the community now. There’s a great bond among the staff there. It’s a happy place!”
Despite that, not everyone on Skye is keen to see more fi sh farm sites and OSH has suff ered two planning setbacks over the past few months. In order to be able to harvest all year round, and to be able leave sites fallow for a period as its organic strategy requires, OSH is looking to add two more sites off Skye. Its proposals so far have been turned down, however.
First, an applica� on for a site at Flodigarry was rejected by the local authority on the grounds that the farm would impact the Tro� ernish NSA (Na� onal Scenic Area) and Tro� ernish and Tianavaig SLA (Special Landscape Area). The appeal against that decision was not upheld by the Sco� sh Government’s planning appeals reporter, in November last year.
Then in January, Highland Council’s North Planning Applica� on Commi� ee denied the request, for a fi sh farm at Balmaqueen in the north-east of the island, following a mo� on carried by eight votes to six. In both cases the s� cking point appears to have been the visual impact of the farms on an area popular with tourists.
The company says the site would have released investments in excess of £4m, earmarked for salaries, equipment and stock. Consis� ng of 12 120-meter cages, the Balmaqueen site would have provided direct, full-� me employment for seven farm employees and two boat workers, taking the direct work force to 21 full-� me employees.
MacInnes says: “It [Balmaqueen] had all its permissions and none of the statutory regulators and stakeholders were against our proposals. Unfortunately it didn’t make it through planning.
“Where I live, we have a very diverse economy, and while I recognise the importance of tourism – and I understand that tourists like to take in the view, I’ve grown up with these views, I’ve lived all my life on the west coast next to the sea and I walk the hills and the coastal trails – at the end of the day you need a diverse economy and you cannot survive just on tourism. That’s been more apparent than ever before with the pandemic that we’ve unfortunately been through.”
OSH is now formally appealing the Balmaqueen decision. The company recently received moral support from Stewart Graham, Managing Director with Gael Force, who wrote a strongly worded ar� cle comparing the opponents of an industry that is crea� ng employment on the west coast to the Highland Clearances, which saw the region emp� ed of people to make room for sheep farming.
Graham wrote: “Like the Clearances, once again the welfare of the local people who work the land and the sea is being considered as secondary to the narrow interests of a minority, o� en not rooted in the area, who care not for the economic wellbeing of other local people.”
Alex MacInnes is upbeat, however. He says: “We are a resilient bunch; there are some very good heads round the table, some very confi dent heads. We have a lot of trust and respect in each other and we will move on from here.
“We have never set out to be the biggest organic farmer, we just want to be the best in respect of fi sh health and welfare, and quality of fi sh. We just want to do a really good job; we just want a fair crack at realising our ambi� ons and leaving a sustainable legacy for the next genera� on of organic fi sh farmers.” FF
Top left: OSH’s staff are proud of the company’s organic status Left: Invertote Below: Stewart Graham
